Ms. Z. Arsenault is an IT consultant working in the depths of a large North American energy company. She's one of those brave souls who works away in the background, keeping the servers running, making sure all the pieces fall properly into place so when the employees wander in each morning their applications run as expected. It's often a busy job just keeping things on a steady path. But Ms. Arsenault and her team aren't just maintaining the status quo, they're also trying to improve performance and cut costs while maintaining a stable environment for the end user. This week I had the opportunity to talk with Ms. Arsenault about what's she's been up to in the depths of corporate IT.

OT and sexist--and will most likely be downranked to oblivion, but she is in my top 3 list for attractive women in (real) IT.

You have what I would call a solid philosophy on your migration. Our "company" is currently evaluating various OS software and contemplating migration of several non-critical departments to OS.

I wonder what growing pains have been encountered with these heterogeneous system.

The problem our company has encountered is the large number of proprietary apps REQUIRED by most of our critical departments. Best case scenario indicates some sort of bastardized domain and support system. So much for saving money when you spend it all on retraining your tier 1 and developers. Management promises to cut costs when we are literally doubling our support vectors.

Anyhoo, my favorite part of the interview was her attention to documentation. That one feature is sorely missing in programmers, system admins, DBA's, etc. Many a catastrophe, night of wicked debugging, or mutilated migration could have been spared by a dose of documentation. All us geeks are probably nodding our heads, but do we really hear? It's part of being a professional.

I'll pick properly coupled code with good descriptive variable names over the average javadocced code anyday.

Javadoc describes your attributes, which is a good thing if you are coding an api. But to use it to make somebody understand your code it's useless. it does not describe the structure and logic behind your classes.

I've seen too many getFoo() functions with the the javadoc comment "gets foo". Try to pick you variable, class and method names so they don't need any javadoc.

I agree; our coding standard requires us to do what you have described, but I always try to use descriptive names...

... however I like to describe what the method does before even writing it, helps me think through the logic before I even start coding. Sometimes I write some pseudocode or draw a diagram, depends on what I am doing ultimately.

I'm not saying this particular lady does so, but I believe that if you're an attractive woman (or man), then there's no shame whatsoever in using that asset to gain an advantage. If men are stupid enough to get wrapped around fingers (and we are), then that's our fault, not hers.

I'm not saying this particular lady does so, but I believe that if you're an attractive woman (or man), then there's no shame whatsoever in using that asset to gain an advantage. If men are stupid enough to get wrapped around fingers (and we are), then that's our fault, not hers.

The big problem for me in this statement is - that it's sadly true!

Generation after generation of women grow up with exactly THIS firmly entrenched in their brains. And you know what? They hit a wall when they turn 40. Because "being attractive" goes away at some point.

Qualification and competence, ability to work alone and/or in teams, willingness to adapt and learn new stuff, maybe being polite. This is all that should matter.

But the rolemodels just aren't there. And so we see the next generation of girls growing up. This time with "Germany's next topmodel" on the TV screens, Rapvideos where the girls are nothing but "hoes" to a "pimp", and so on.

"I'm not saying this particular lady does so, but I believe that if you're an attractive woman (or man), then there's no shame whatsoever in using that asset to gain an advantage. If men are stupid enough to get wrapped around fingers (and we are), then that's our fault, not hers.

I don't agree. If you are a men is stronger than a woman, is it her fault? By that logic you could beat her if she is not strong enough to defend herself because that is her fault.
There's aline to draw. In my country, discriminating based on physical appearance is illegal and I think it is a good thing. On the other hand, I believe it is a shame to use your physical appearance to gain an advantage over people.

Yes, it is terribly sexist of you. This is OSNews, where we deal with 1's and 0's, and not much else matters. A person should be taken seriously based solely on competence, and it's pathetic that you'd rank her by her looks. It's out of place and inappropriate.

Also, are you thinking what I'm thinking? Add some Sarah Palin glasses and a margarita?

Yes, quite cute - but if you really want to meet beautiful IT women, pick a company (in the US that is), which specializes in Women's apparel - who you'll meet there in IT will simply blow your head off: beautiful, educated IT specialists, and your competition is gay or married...

Red Hat has such a compelling story. They are cheaper, offer great long support and 100% FOSS stack long term strategy (that includes the possibility to use CentOS once you have enough in house knowledge)

I don't see RH making 6.66 billion a quarter like MS, but in the very long run I don't see how anybody can really compete with them.

PS. And I knew when I saw the photo that sexist comments are a likely possibility, but I hoped OSnews was better than that.

Plug for FindBugs (http://findbugs.sourceforge.net). It's worth it just as a CYA to run Java apps through and automatically document problems. Next time you get a call about your "terribly performing servers," you can start with the app performance itself.

It's true. Taller people make more money. It's not their fault they are taller. It's not their fault they make more money. It's the Personnel department and the tall person's bosses that decide how much they make.

We ALL use what we have to make more money. If we have low self esteem it works against us. That's just fact.

I do not think less of any woman who is very attractive. I would not give a woman a job just based on that. I wouldn't give her a job based on her having the same qualifications but just being better looking.

For me, and this it for real, personality wins out every time. If they are good looking but unpleasant to be around. They lose. If they think people owe them things because they are good looking, they lose. At least with me.

It's true. Taller people make more money. It's not their fault they are taller. It's not their fault they make more money. It's the Personnel department and the tall person's bosses that decide how much they make.

We ALL use what we have to make more money. If we have low self esteem it works against us. That's just fact.

I'm tall and I could go to my boss and threaten to beat him because I'm obviously stronger than him. That could make me more money indeed, but I don't.
In my country, there is a law that an employer is obligated to consider anonymous resumes. You can send your resume with no picture and no name and he has to consider it. If he receives someone with lower qualifications for an interview but not you because you didn't send your picture, you can sue. There are also a set of 18 attributes he has no right to discriminate against, including gender and physical appearance. You can also sue if he discriminates for other attributes that are not related to the job.

Unfortunately, it does still happen. I'm sorry but that's just not acceptable. You can not say "that's life" and get along with that. That behavior is to be condemned and the perpetrators should face the consequences of their judgment. Look at what happened in the last century. If you let it slip, it slips. First the bad looking people, then the old people, then the disabled, and then it's you. Any discrimination based on something not related to the job should be reported and condemned.